With the up and coming hype behind the live action Jem movie, I finally broke down and watched the classic animated show. You might laugh but I really didn’t get to watch Jem as a kid. 1) I lived in a very strict pentecostal home, and 2) I was simply too young to enjoy the show. When Jem came out back in 1985 I was 4 years old and living in Puerto Rico. By the time I was 7 years old in 1988 the series was off the TV screens. However, I did remember catching the theme song here and there in Spanish and all that I have to say is that the singers who dubbed the Spanish version really needed a Prozac or two to cheer them up as they sang they upbeat song. It was sad to listen too just like many horribly dubbed Spanish shows.

Now In my early 30’s I decided “Why the Hell Not”, I’ll totally watch Jem to see why so many hard core fans love this show. Plus is on Netflix so I have nothing to lose.

The Show:

The first episode in the series opens with the horrible news that Jerrica Benton father has just died and she was in the middle of a legal battle with her father’s partner, Eric Raymond, to retain the rights to manage her inheritance along with a record company called Starlight Music her father left to her. In the middle of the conflict she meets up with a holographic computer created by her father called Synergy which allows Jerrica to create her rock star alter ego called Jem. Because the fate of her inheritance was riding on a bet surrounding a Battle of the Bands by Eric and Jerrica, Jerrica use her alter ego Jem to create the band called “Jem and the Holograms” to compete against Eric’s Band the Misfits. Jem and the Holograms won the bet and that’s how the story began.

To the left the Misfits (Roxy, Pizzazz,Stormer,and Jetta) and the right Jem and The Holograms(Jem, Raya,Aja,Shanna, and Kimber) as of season 3.

The show has a handful of main cast including; Jerrica Benton who is the owner of Starlight records and Starlight Home Orphanage; Rio who is Jem and The Holograms manager and Jerrica or Jem’s boy friend.. I think ; Jem lead singer of the band and Jerrica’s holographic alter ego; Senergy who is magical computer in which the band could not be possible if it didn’t exist; Kimber Benton is Jerrica’s youngest sister who plays the keyboard in the bad and writes the songs; and Aja Leigth is the guitarist and Shanna Elmsford is the drummer who are Jerrica’s and Kimbers adopted sisters. Later on the series they added Carmen “Raya” Alonso as the new drummer while Shanna went on to play guitar. All five girls represented the magical marketing word called “diversity” by having a main cast that is white, black, asian, and hispanic cultures represented in one show. All tho I have no idea what Rio is supposed to be… maybe Brazilian, Italian, Hispanic, Hawaiian, Native American,… Who Knows????

The Stingers (Rapture, Riot, and Minx) from Season 3

As a supporting cast they have the bad guys who are Eric Raymond who is trying to steal the company away from Jerrica, and the Misfits which has Pizzazz as a lead singer and guitarist who is also incredibly rich and is a horrible stereotype of what happens when rich people spoiled their kids and never say no to them, Roxy as the second guitar player who I’m not quite sure why she is in the Misfits because she’s really a good guy in disguise, Stormer plays the keytar… yes a KEYTAR… Google it up… and she’s just angry and illiterate, and down the line they added British Saxophonist called Jetta who is a con artist and a royal piece of work. As the season expanded into season 3, they added another rival band called the Stingers but to be honest by this point I think most of us lost track of all the crazy drama and it seem they were trying to hard. Oh by the way you also have 3rd rate banana characters that included Dance, Video, Clash, Erics heacham #1 and #2, and the girls from the orphanage. These characters appeared randomly and some were allies of Jem and the Holograms but they were not featured in every episode.

What I think of the show

To be honest the show totally took me by surprise. All these years I thought he show was a very Barbie Bimbo type of show but in reality the show had some very complicated relationships, morbid moments, and dark situations that really keeps you watching. Best way to describe it is “My first Soap Opera”. The main complicated situation is how Jerrica continues to mess with Rio (her long time boyfriend) by constantly cockteasing him with Jem. Rio was trying to stay loyal to Jerrican but Jem (who is really Jerrica) constantly throws herself at him as her holographic self Jem and confusing the crap out of the poor guy who doesn’t realize he’s really not cheating because she is really the same girl. What gets even more screwed up is how Jerrica gets mad at him because she is Jealous of her self as Jem, and doesn’t know if Rio loves her as Jerrica or as Jem. You follow me yet???? Yea!!! Totally screwed up. Plus Jerrica/Jem refuses to tell Rio they are both the same person and the complications in their relationship(s) continue to degrade more and more through the series due to Jem secrezy of her true identity and how Jerrica is always too busy to spend time with Rio as herself.

Rio and Jerrica’s/Jem’s Screwed up relationship(s).

The bad guys on this show are as screwed up as the main cast. I’m convinced that the Misfits are the main reason why guys think all women are crazy. Just within the first few episodes they could legally be charge with destruction of private property, theft, attempted murder, reckless driving just to name a few. Their manager Eric Benson is no better and can be charged with kidnaping, fraud, and the list of charges goes on and on. The other band, The Stingers, weren’t any better. In the entire series I think there was only one episode in which the bad guys were arrested for doing something wrong. The rest of the series no cops to be found. Go figure.

The show has some inconsistencies that sometimes I had a hard time tracking. For example on the first episode Jerrica was supposedly a girl in her teens, but with in the first few episodes it seem that was thrown out the window and all of the sudden Jerrica/Jem and the Holograms were treated as if they were in their early 20’s witch to be honest allowed them to get away with more stuff. I already talked about how screwed up Jerrica/Jem situations is towards Rio and Rio swinging back on forth on that. Jerrica’s young sisters Kimber had several guys she was fooling with and she seem to trade them up like man candy and switch between them like a pair of dressing shoes until later on in the series. Then there’s the strange crazy kind of sort of relationship Jem had with the lead singer of the Stingers Riot. She never liked him but in some episodes she kind of did but in other episode she’s trying to get away from him. I don’t know… it all makes great school girl TV.

All in an all the show is very addictive. Between all the screwed up situations, sad tear jerkers, and all the songs they played per episode this series is A-OK!! I highly recommend re watching it before the movie is released next year.About the Show:

Jem ran from 1985 to 1988 and it has 3 seasons equaling a total of 65 episodes. Jem was created by Hasbro and the animation was produced by Sunbow Productions animation studios. Sunbow Production is also well known for creating other popular animated shows in the 80’s such as the original My Little Pony, G I Joe, Transformers, Jem, Bucky O’Hare and the Toad Wars, The Tick, just to name a few. Just like many of our loved cartoon characters, Jem actually had two personalities playing her on the show. Samantha Newak as the voice of Jem/Jerrica and Britta Phillips sang the intro song along with the rest of songs in the series but she also was the voice of Kimber and Aja. Other casting voices were Cindy McGee as the voice of Shanna, and Linda Dangcil as the voice of Raya.

Each episode feature 3 songs, one which was a full music video. This included the two variations of the intro song, the music video in the episode and the end credits which was always “Jem- Truly, Truly, Outrageous”. The show made it a point to make sure the music videos had a look that was easily associated with the rock videos seen on MTV in that time period. The show did a very good job giving each band a very unique sound to their music. Jem and The Holograms had more a pop sound to their music, The Misfits had underground punk rock sound, and for the Stingers they had a seductive sexy rock groove to them.

While on the air the show averaged around 2.5 million viewers weekly and it aired in countries like US, Australia, Canada, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and France. The show received several awards and also had it’s own toy line. Sadly Hasbro’s Jem and the Holograms dolls were competing with Mattel’s Barbie and the Rockers dolls. Due to poor sales they were sold at a discounted price but they continued production with the show until 1988. If you din’t get your Jem doll back then don’t worry, Hasbro along with Integrity toys decided back in 2011 that they will release a new collectible version of the Jem dolls that retailed on their released date in 2012 at a whopping price of $135 each. They are truly OUTRAGEOUS but beautiful dolls and an amazing quality that stay true to the original show.

Live action Movie

To be quite honest I don’t’ know much about the live action movie except that they just started production in April of 2014. I personally don’t recognize any of the movie stars they casted as the Jem and the Holograms but I’m willing to give it a chance. The movie will be directed by Jon M Chu witch has directed Step Up 2, Step Up 3D, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, and the G I Joe Retaliation movie. So far the G I Joe movie is the only cool movie listed under his resume. LOL To me so far the poster for the Jem Live Action Movie looks cool so I’m crossing my fingers on this one.

As I’m navigating my way through my Netflix account I often find myself watching stuff I’ve never seen before. Some of the times it is a very good experience but some of the time it is just not a great experience. Robotomy was one of those series that I vaguely remember seeing ads for back when I had cable but I also remember it being gone just as quickly as it appeared.
At the time I thought the art style was interesting but it was nothing that I wanted to watch until now.

The first thing that I noticed is that the series was incredibly short. It was only 10 episodes compared to the standard 13 or 22 episode per season I’m used to seeing. That got me thinking… ok what do I have to lose? Put it on the background and is only going to be on for about 4 ½ to 5 hours tops. What could possibly go wrong with this?

Oh boy…

The show follows these two robots that are in robot high school a name…. you know what who cares. In this world being a heinous evil robot is the norm, while being nice is completely off pudding. While you follow Thrasher and Blastus through the school you will be shown incredibly odd and at unrelatable situations that simply fall flat and are simply not funny. As you watch the show you get the sense that just like it’s main characters it was trying too hard to be the next big thing and simply filled the show with stupid unfunny fart jokes, and imagery that only Ah!!! Real Monsters could have pulled off back in the day. Both the main cast and secondary characters have very 2D personalities like school princess, jock, nerd that have a very cliche fell to them. After the first 3 episode I simply blurred out the show and it was just moving pictures with noise.

I’m sure someone out there likes the show, but is just not me. If you like it, let me know in the comments. Maybe I’m missing something, where’s the jokes?

About the Show
Seeing how bad the show was got me thinking what happened here. How did this get made and why. It turns out the show was created after a long losing streak of rejected production ideas. The show was in and off production for a few years due to changing management, and finally was finished in 2009 pushed out to be aired in 2010. Needless to say it didn’t go well. The show only lasted a measly 4 months on the air before it was cancelled. The show is the shortest running Cartoon Network original series along with the least episodes ever made by them. The show was so bad it was finally also completely removed from the CN website around 2011 as a listed show. I’ve rarely seen any network do that. Talk about sweeping it under the rug.

What really made me sad is that this show was directed by Christy Karacas who is known for his other project Superjail. I love Superjail. All in all you can’t win them all and this is one of those shows best left forgotten.

Final Thoughts
Only watch if you are severely intoxicated and looking to kill brain cells. Best recommendation is to skip it completely.

I think here at Raging Nerdgasm we revel in older toys. There’s a certain undeniable charm to them, they come from a day and time in the past where today’s political correctness didn’t exist and they represent the period in world history. Megatron represented a simpler time where kid’s playing with toy guns wasn’t demonized the way it is today, 2 foot tall jumbo Shogun Warriors shot missiles and fists hard and quick enough to put an eye out or otherwise seriously injure your siblings and LJN wrestlers were made out of enough petroleum that three to five of them could have filled your gas tank if they’d remained in their crude form. I’m drawn to these toys, not only as a child of the 80s and 90s but as a toy and pop culture historian. Today, while digging through all the treasures in my storage I found something I couldn’t pass up talking about.

In 1988, banking on the success at the box office, Warner Brothers had Ruby-Spears productions create a Police Academy cartoon show. The show only lasted a year but they squeezed two seasons out of the thin premise (remember, they were still making Police Academy movies through the 90s) and even a short run comic book series (via Marvel/Star Imprint Comics). The show even had a theme song by then popular “The Fat Boys” and featured them in two episodes if I remember clearly. The real jewel of this cartoon was the toys. Let’s face it, the 90s brought us toys based off of R rated properties like Alien, Predator, Robocop and Terminator but Kenner used the cartoon as an excellent segue to introduce kids to the characters made famous by their cinematic counterparts. The series was great, covering every member of Commandant Lasard’s team and a good selection of their nefarious no-good-nics they locked up in each episode. The line also had it’s share of tie-in accessories so kids could play out the cartoon action in their own living room. Wallet with badge, tear gas cans, policeman’s hat with radio but the stand out piece for me was the handcuffs.

Growing up I never got the role play pieces of my favorite lines. Just like my explanation from past blogs when I discussed carrying cases, my money was spent acquiring figures and vehicles and playsets. That and also I was big for my age and holding a Sword of Omens looked dumb and carrying around a Proton Pack looked even more silly. It’s almost even funnier being a grown man tracking down these pieces I never owned but I can’t say I specifically hunted them down, I just pick up what comes my way. I found these Police Academy handcuffs in a dollar bin at a flea market months ago. These are great, giant comically over-sized hands that “lock” into place around whomever’s wrists you choose. I can see these being a personal favorite if I had them as a child, I think the ridiculous factor is key in making these just that much cooler than a sword or even another piece of role play from the Police Academy line. Mine, most unfortunately, came without the keys but luckily they aren’t a piece necessary to be able to enjoy the handcuffs.